Dr. Chet’s Health Memos
If it’s in the health news today, I’ll be writing about it as soon as I read the research, both old and new. With my email Health Memos, you’ll know more about making lifestyle choices that will help you get and keep good health. These free, concise updates on health are emailed to subscribers twice a week. Subscribe today and get a free MP3, in English or Spanish, of Dr. Chet’s Top Ten Tips—Small Changes for a Healthier Life.
Vitamin E: Foods and Supplements
/in Memos/by Chet ZelaskoFinishing up our look at vitamin E, the logical question is how much vitamin E do we need and where should we get it from? Let’s get right to it.
The RDA for vitamin E, in natural form as d-alpha tocopherol, is 15 mg per day in people 14 and over and 19 mg if a women is breast feeding. That corresponds to 22.4 IU and 26.8 IU. That would be the minimum intake per day from food or supplements. Why two units of measurement? Vitamin E is reported in mg in foods and IUs in . . .
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Symptoms of Vitamin E Deficiency
/in Memos/by Chet ZelaskoIf 90% of us are deficient in vitamin E as recent research estimated, what are some of the issues we could face? That’s one of the problems the author was examining because there are no documented overt symptoms of vitamin E deficiency other than children who cannot absorb it or in times of extreme malnutrition (1). That’s one reason it’s so difficult to pinpoint vitamin E deficiencies in people.
The symptoms are mostly neurological disorders that continue to get worse. It can cause nerve death in the peripheral sensory nerves—the arms and legs—and ataxia, which . . .
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Vitamin E Update
/in Memos/by Chet ZelaskoAs a member of the American Society of Nutrition, I receive three e-journals. I’m not going to tell you I read them cover to cover, but I check out what’s going on in nutrition research. That’s why a recent review article titled “Vitamin E Inadequacy in Humans: Causes and Consequences” caught my attention (1). See if this wouldn’t catch your attention:
It is estimated that more than 90% of Americans do not consume sufficient dietary vitamin E as alpha-tocopherol to meet estimated average requirements.
Wow! More than 90% of us come up short? How . . .
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The Low Carb Versus Low Fat Battle: No Decision
/in Memos/by Chet ZelaskoToday I’m finishing my review of the study that compared a low-fat diet with a low-carb diet. As Paula can attest, I’ve been muttering under my breath since I read that paper—not to mention the occasional rant. Here’s why.
First, the researchers tried to get the healthiest obese people they could get—completely understandable because the idea is to eliminate confounding variables. The problem is that when every measured variable is normal to begin with, the results are meaningless unless there are huge changes in something such as body weight, cholesterol, or triglycerides. Note . . .
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The Battle Continues: Low Carb Versus Low Fat
/in Memos/by Chet ZelaskoThe diet battles never seem to end: “Low carb is the best!” “No, low fat is!” “Shut up. You’re wrong!” And it escalates from there. The research to assess which diet really is the best diet also continues. The latest study has gotten considerable press, so I thought I should review it for you (1).
Researchers at Tulane University in Louisiana recruited 148 of the healthiest obese people they could find. None were diabetics or had any symptoms of heart disease, although it appears hypertension controlled by medication was permitted. Participants were randomly assigned to either a low-fat . . .
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The Best Source of Calcium
/in Memos/by Chet ZelaskoLet’s go back to where we began. Is any form of calcium, whether from foods, supplements, or some new-fangled source, any better absorbed than another?
No—not enough that it would make a real difference, anyway. There are two primary forms of calcium available that have lead to this absorption controversy, so let’s take a look at them. In supplement form, calcium carbonate has the most calcium per mg at 40% while calcium citrate has about 20%. That means that fewer milligrams of calcium carbonate are needed to get the amount a person needs to take.
The . . .
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Variances in Calcium Absorption
/in Memos/by Chet ZelaskoOn top of the calcium absorption issues discussed in Tuesday’s message, there are a few more factors that have to be considered. In healthy women, gross absorption efficiency spans at least a threefold range, from 15% to 45%, even after adjustment for differences in intake.
Here’s an example. One woman, absorbing at 45% efficiency, extracts 135 mg of the calcium in an 8-ounce serving of milk containing 300 mg of calcium and after subtracting the calcium used in digestion, her net calcium is 100 mg. But another woman absorbing at 15% efficiency extracts only 45 mg and . . .
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Calcium Absorption
/in Memos/by Chet ZelaskoAs you might predict, I get a lot of questions about dietary supplements. People read about some just-discovered source of a nutrient and the claims that it’s better absorbed, and they wonder: is this better than the supplement I’m taking? Such is the case with calcium. A company has claimed that their form of calcium from algae is better absorbed.
Let’s start off with a general overview of calcium absorption. Calcium is poorly absorbed regardless of the source—doesn’t matter whether it’s dairy products, fish with soft bones such as sardines, or in supplements . . .
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Feeding Kids to Support Their Immune System
/in Memos/by Chet ZelaskoYou can probably guess what kids should eat every day to keep their immune systems healthy: foods high in antioxidants, and that’s mainly fruits and vegetables. The research on the benefits to children’s immune system is beyond contestation (one of my favorite words).
Apples, oranges, strawberries, blueberries, and on and on and on. How you present them is up to you. I would avoid fruits juices even if you juice foods at home; you want every vitamin, mineral, and phytonutrient antioxidant you can give them, and the fiber helps feed the good bacteria that are important to the . . .
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Boost Your Kid’s Immune System
/in Memos/by Chet ZelaskoKids have been back in school over a week now and exposed to a whole host of viruses and bacteria they didn’t see this summer; I hope yours haven’t been sick already. It’s time to talk about how to keep kids healthy this school year.
The first thing on my list is probiotics, the good bacteria. Many studies have looked at probiotics as a treatment for allergies, dermatitis, and digestive issues in infants and children. That’s the way the healthcare research is done: you’re broken, how can we fix you? Our goal is different—we . . .
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